Home-care System Assailed

Mental Patients' Kin Tell Legislators About Neglect And Abuse

August 30, 1991|By KATHLEEN MEGAN; Courant Staff Writer

C A handful of people told legislators Thursday that their relatives were abused in state-licensed Bridgeport-area homes for the mentally ill and asked for the closing of all such homes. "Residents have been locked out, denied adequate food, physically, verbally and psychologically abused, not given the money owed them," said Katina Zachmanaglou, whose sister spent 15 months in three of the homes in 1988 and 1989. "Our relative [regressed] until she wound up in Fairfield Hills Hospital." Zachmanaglou, a New York City resident, called the 21-home family-care system "archaic" and said it should be replaced with professionally operated group homes, supervised apartments, and other independent living programs.

Zachmanaglou and several others with relatives in family-care homes testified during a hearing before the legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee, which is studying the homes.

State Rep. Robert D. Bowden, co-chairman of the committee, said that it was Zachmanaglou's reports of abuse and poor conditions at three of the homes that prompted the committee to investigate.

Zachmanaglou's efforts were also largely the catalyst for state health officials' increased scrutiny of the homes in the past year. As a result, the licenses of five homes have been revoked, including those of two of the homes where Zachmanaglou's sister lived. The family-care homes had their beginnings in the 1970s when state mental health officials were looking for alternatives for the thousands of mental patients leaving state hospitals.

The homes are operated by people with no professional background who agree to provide room and board to mental patients in return for $682 a month a person. Ideally, the homes provide a more normal, family-like atmosphere for patients returning to the community than a group home or other residences filled with professional staff.

Margaret Grimes, who coordinates five family-care homes in the Newtown amd Danbury area, told the committee that those homes do provide a positive, warm environment for patients. Grimes, who works out of Fairfield Hills Hospital, also provides training and support for home operators.

The other homes, mostly in the Bridgeport area, have no such coordinator and no training or support programs for operators -- a major problem with the system, David E.K. Hunter, program analyst for the Department of Mental Health told the committee.

Other problems listed by Hunter include the confusing involvement of three state agencies in the homes: state health officials license the homes, mental health staffers put people in them, and welfare officials pay home operators. Hunter also said a lack of standards governing the quality of life for patients in the homes also is a major failing.

Hunter said the homes are an important alternative for mental patients, who he said have very few choices. He urged the committee to support changes in regulations to improve the homes, rather than to eliminate them, and he recommended a moratorium on the granting of new family-care licenses until those regulations are in place.

After listening to Zachmanaglou, Hunter and others, Bowden said it was unclear whether the entire system should be scrapped or whether it could be salvaged through better regulations and training.

Before deciding which direction to take, Bowden said, the committee's staff will do more investigation and in November will make recommendations. The staff is auditing complaint records about the homes to assess how well the current regulations are working; is comparing Connecticut's family-care homes to those in other states; and is analyzing the cost of the residential alternatives if family-care homes close.